This invention relates to grooved rollers used on reel type cutting units.
Reel type cutting units are well known for cutting grass. Many such cutting units in common use today are attached to the frame of a self-propelled riding mower. Such cutting units comprise a frame which carries a transversely extending reel and a bedknife adjacent a lower portion of the reel. The cutting unit frame often includes front and rear rollers that engage the ground to allow the cutting unit to roll over the ground as the mower operates.
The front roller in many reel type cutting units often comprises a grooved roller. Various versions of this grooved roller have been provided in the art. In one xe2x80x9cnon-shoulderedxe2x80x9d version, the grooves extend over substantially the entire length of the roller. In another xe2x80x9cshoulderedxe2x80x9d version, the last two or three grooves on each end of the roller are substantially filled in by additional material cast into the roller when the roller is manufactured.
Reel type cutting units are usually equipped with non-shouldered grooved rollers. However, when cutting grass in certain conditions, the cut grass swath sometimes exhibits visually objectionable longitudinal stripes in the areas where trailing cutting units overlap leading cutting units. If this happens, the solution in the art for getting rid of such overlap stripes is to replace the non-shouldered grooved rollers on the cutting units with shouldered grooved rollers. With this change, the grooved rollers now have shoulders in the overlap areas. Thus, the cutting efficiency in the overlap areas is reduced so that the appearance of the cut grass in the overlap areas better matches the appearance of the cut grass in the rest of the cut grass swath even though the grass has been cut twice in the overlap areas, namely by both the leading and following cutting units, rather than once in the rest of the cut grass swath.
One problem with using different versions of grooved rollers, namely both a shouldered and a non-shouldered version, is the need to purchase and have on hand both types of rollers. Another problem is the need to replace one version of the grooved roller with another version when cutting conditions would normally indicate the desirability of such a change. It is labor intensive and time consuming to replace one set of rollers with another set of rollers, particularly since many of the other operational characteristics of the cutting unit, such as reel to bedknife clearance or height of cut, will have to be reset or readjusted after a roller change. Accordingly, many operators of this type of equipment might simply not make the change in rollers with the result that performance of the mower in the particular cutting conditions being encountered is not optimized.
One aspect of this invention relates to a method of providing a reel type cutting unit with grooved rollers having variable shoulder configurations. The method comprises providing a non-shouldered grooved roller on the reel type cutting unit. The method further comprises selectively providing a shoulder on the grooved roller without removing the grooved roller from the reel type cutting unit.
One aspect of this invention relates to a method of converting a non-shouldered grooved roller for a reel type cutting unit of a mower for mowing grass to a shouldered grooved roller. The method comprises providing a plurality of annular groove inserts, each insert being sized to substantially fill in one groove on the roller. The method further comprises selectively installing a groove insert in at least one groove on at least one end of the roller to provide a shoulder on at least one end of the roller.
Another aspect of this invention relates to apparatus for practicing the above noted method. The apparatus comprises a plurality of annular groove inserts. Each insert is sized to substantially fill in one groove on the roller.